I SUCK.

I know. I'm home and I can't even write, like, one little paragraph on my blog. I know people are trying to keep updated on my life here. I'm making that nearly impossible, but give a girl a break!

Well, the last few weeks have really been a blur. Classes finished the first week of June and then I had a week to chill and sleep and hang out with Kel and Christine before they left me (Sacramento and Spain, respectively). On Wednesday, June 14, Ash came to visit and we had a really spectacular time just catching up and enjoying each others' company. It was a terrific four days; I had such a wonderful time. We did some restaurants (Top Pot, of course) and read our books (both reading the Devil Wears Prada) and went to the Fremont Street Fair (interesting to say the least). Oh so fun. :)

After Ash left, I had a subleaser come by to look at my room, then I tried my damnedest to see everyone I could before leaving to come home. I was pretty frantic trying to get everything set up for my subleaser and packing and trying to catch up on life stuff that has been completely ignored since school started (laundry, shopping, self care, budget, checkbook stuff, bills, cleaning, etc.). I left on a red eye on Tuesday night to get into Minneapolis at 5am and Green Bay by 11:30am. I surprised my parents at about 1pm that afternoon. It's been difficult to adjust to the time and schedule here - eating and sleeping and exercising (NEVER) and working, but everything literally just fell right into place after I decided (Tuesday, June 7) to come back to Green Bay. It was meant to be, I swear. Amazing. I mean, everything from subleasing to jobs to registering for my ballet class to M never calling me back after our date. It all just went perfectly for me to come back to GB. Almost eerily so.

And it's funny. Hard to explain. How exactly do I feel not being in school? How was my first year? It's not really worth explaining. Or maybe it just feels impossible to explain. I feel like the last couple years of my life have really been nonexistant. I mean, I have these great friends and memories and pictures, but my brain hasn't processed my undergraduate college graduation, how do you expect I have even begun to deal with being halfway through a Master's Program? That's right, I haven't. Not to mention that it's always the same damn season in Seattle, so it's like living in a bubble for my whole life: I am restricted to studying, bussing, eating, and exercising while in Seattle. It's like I live a whole different life that does not even compare to my life in the midwest. Someone asked me to compare undergrad to grad school and I told them that it's impossible. In undergrad, you just do what you need to do, you're busy, you're studying, you're doing work and having tons of fun. Watching TV, drinking beers, hanging out with friends, talking all the time, being crazy, and never really worrying about stuff. Things get done, no questions asked. Even if it's 10 hours before due time, that final paper gets completed, no doubt. (And you get the highest damn grade on it.) BUT in grad school, you're never without guilt. You always have something to do and you never feel right about abandoning your studies to have fun, exercise, talk, laugh, or even eat sometimes. You are heavy with an almost sickening guilt that you need to do your best and you need to get it all done and somone else is probably doing 10 times more than you, so you better get your ass in gear or else there goes that grade or publication spot or internship. It's a different ball game where you have to plan out how long you're going to spend talking about issues other than school with your study buddies just so you don't spend so much time doing things that don't involve NOT DOING WORK. Like I said before, in a nutshell, it's almost too difficult to explain how it feels to be in grad school. It sucks. It blows. It hurts. Its damaging. It's painful. It's exhausting. But, damn, it's rewarding. And thank God I have family and friends who support me and don't get mad when I don't call them and don't care that I suck sometimes because I sure as hell wouldn't be here if I didn't have that.

And thank God for summer break.